Abstract

Action research is both a research technique and a vehicle for organisational and professional development. This paper reports upon three action research projects into cross-cultural communication, which were set up in comparable in 4/5 star city centre hotels. Qualitative data gathered from the action research meetings and from interviews with participants and their colleagues were used to evaluate the projects’ success in terms of process and outcomes. The data provided insights into the way cross-cultural communication operates between hotel managers, workers and guests. The action research process proved to be strongly motivating to participants and in some cases produced a learning attitude which persisted more than a year after the project had finished. Senior management understanding and support were found to be key prerequisites for the success of the action research process. From the point of view of organisational development it was important that participants had training roles within either their departments or organisation-wide, so that they could cascade their learning to others. However, organisational benefits were limited, largely due to the restricted view that senior managers took of the project.